Startups

Laurene Powell Jobs' Emerson Collective was the most active family-office investor with three startup bets.

Joel Khalili / Wired: Potential Sciences, an AI startup building large-scale chemical data sets, secured backing from the UK's Sovereign AI Fund, as part of an eight-figure raise  —  Potential Sciences, a startup backed by the UK government, is betting that training AI models on computer-generated biochemical data …

Aaron Holmes / The Information: Sources: cloud security startup Cyera is planning to raise around $800M in a round led by Cyberstarts at a $20B valuation, up from $12B in June  —  Last week my colleagues Jemima and Valida scooped that Cyera, a five-year-old cloud security startup, was mulling a new fundraise …

Rebecca Torrence / Bloomberg: Defense tech startup Shield AI raises $2.5B to help acquire radar company Echodyne, including a $1B Series H at a $28.8B valuation, up from $12.7B in March  —  Defense tech startup set to acquire Echodyne Corp., which sells radar sensors to government and commercial customers.

Mary Ann Azevedo / Crunchbase News: Dropbox plans to acquire AI storage startup Tigris Data for $350M, its largest acquisition to date; Tigris raised ~$31.9M from Spark, a16z, and others  —  Dropbox announced Thursday plans to acquire Tigris Data for $350 million in a transaction the company told Crunchbase News would mark …

Kelly Cloonan / Wall Street Journal: Autonomous drone delivery startup Zipline raised $1.5B at a $21.5B valuation, up from $7.85B after raising $600M in January, and plans to grow US manufacturing  —  CEO Keller Cliffton says the company's skyrocketing valuation is a sign that autonomous delivery has finally gained wider acceptance

Potential Sciences, a startup backed by the UK government, is betting that training AI models on computer-generated biochemical data can speed up the plodding process of developing new drugs.

Valida Pau / The Information: Sources: Palo Alto Networks is in talks to acquire Israeli startup Clutch Security, which develops software for tracking passwords used by AI agents, for ~$500M  —  Palo Alto Networks is in talks to buy three-year-old Israeli security startup Clutch Security for around $500 million, according to people familiar with the matter.

Bloomberg: Sources: Google DeepMind spinout Isomorphic Labs is in talks to raise ~$5B at a ~$50B valuation; the AI drug discovery startup last raised $2.1B in May  —  Alphabet Inc.'s Isomorphic Labs is in talks to raise roughly $5 billion in new funds to support its efforts to use artificial intelligence …

Murad Hemmadi / Globe and Mail: Filing: AMD will pay ~$2.9B in cash and stock for AI chip startup Taalas, with $1.4B dependent on unspecified conditions; the deal was announced in August  —  Advanced Micro Devices Inc. AMD-Q said Wednesday that it will pay about US$2.9-billion for Toronto-based semiconductor startup Taalas Inc. …

Reuters: AI sales automation startup Nooks secures a $500M commitment from General Catalyst's CVF, which will take a share of the returns generated by the capital  —  Nooks has secured a $500 million commitment from General Catalyst's Customer Value Fund to finance the company's sales and marketing push …

In this edition of AI Prognosis: These biotech startups don't think drug discovery is where AI can make the biggest difference.

Madison Mills / Axios: OpenAI acquires developer tools startup Pierre Computer for an undisclosed amount and plans to integrate Pierre's Code Storage feature directly into Codex  —  OpenAI will acquire Pierre Computer, a developer tools startup whose technology is already embedded in Codex, the company told Axios exclusively.

Neil Kakkar / The Pragmatic Engineer: A software engineer details how he went from merging eight to 20 pull requests per month to 200+ after joining AI-native creator startup Tano eight months ago  —  Before we start: I'm in San Francisco this week and there are a few remaining spots for these live events (registration required):

What’s behind Tokyo’s strong fintech momentum? What are the opportunities for global fintech innovators in Tokyo? What kind of support can they receive to expand in the city’s fast-growing ecosystem? The post Why Global FinTech Startups Are Choosing Tokyo appeared first on The Fintech Times.

Every year, Paris startup campus Station F tries to identify the young companies worth watching. Its latest Future 40 list names 40 startups it considers the strongest among more than 1,000 companies based at the campus in 2026. Now in its eighth edition, the Future 40 selection is based on results, growth and milestones, rather […] This story continues at The Next Web

Fal, which hosts image, video and audio AI models for developers, raised $1.3B led by Bessemer at a $16B valuation, double its April value. Nvidia and T. Rowe Price also invested. Fal plans to spend the money on more computing power and staff. Fal, a startup that runs image, video and audio AI models for […] This story continues at The Next Web

Natasha Mascarenhas / Bloomberg: AI inference startup Fal raised $1.3B led by Bessemer at a $16B valuation, up from $8B in April; a source says it hit $800M in annualized revenue this year  —  Fal, an AI inference startup that hosts image, video and audio models for creators and developers, has doubled its valuation to $16 billion in a new round of funding.

Colin Demarest / Axios: New England-based autonomous submarine startup Corridian emerges from stealth with a $38M seed led by Point72 Ventures and plans to unveil its first AUV in 2027  —  Corridian, a New England-based robo-submarine maker, exited stealth Tuesday morning alongside word of its $38 million seed.

CrowdStrike has agreed to buy two AI security companies, Fiddler AI and Dreadnode. It announced both on Tuesday at its Fal.Con Europe conference in Barcelona. Fiddler tracks what AI agents do and why. Dreadnode tests AI models, applications and agents for weaknesses before they go live. CrowdStrike did not disclose the prices. It plans to […] This story continues at The Next Web

© seekingalpha.com. Use of this feed is limited to personal, non-commercial use and is governed by Seeking Alpha's Terms of Use (https://about.seekingalpha.com/terms). Publishing this feed for public or commercial use and/or misrepresentation by a third party is prohibited.

Ram Iyer / TechCrunch: Israeli startup 42AI, which is developing a “behavioral world model” that tries to predict human behavior, emerges from stealth with a $62.5M seed  —  Here's a question straight out of sci-fi: What if AI could predict what you were going to do before you decided to, even in a completely new situation?

Oshkosh Defense partnered with Grid Aero to scale production of the Lifter aircraft, marking the defense giant's first foray into aircraft manufacturing.

Rahul Raj / EU-Startups: The Hague-based Braid, whose API lets companies sell eSIM mobile plans under their own brand via 600+ carriers, raised a ~$38M Series A led by Octopus Ventures  —  Braid, a Dutch company that enables enterprises to launch their own branded mobile connectivity, has raised €34.13 million ($38 million) in a Series A funding round.

Dean Takahashi / GamesBeat: Saudi Aramco acquires a 49% stake in AI startup Humain, contributing ~$2.6B in cash in 2026 plus AI, compute, and digital assets; Saudi Arabia's PIF retains 51%  —  Join the Leaders Making Gaming's Next Big Deals.  GamesBeat NEXT brings 500+ executives, CEOs, founders, and investors to San Francisco …

Allon Sinai / CTech: ServiceNow confirms it acquired Israeli startup Sweep to speed up customers' migrations to its CRM, for an undisclosed price estimated at hundreds of millions  —  Bill McDermott said rollouts now take “a month ... 30 days, 60 days” for large companies, as ServiceNow pushes into CRM.

Providers are betting trading, lending and staking revenue can cover rewards and turn card users into profitable customers.

The team had to use Sonnet after Opus 5.5 outright refused to run the experiment, while Opus 5 warned that it could stop working in the midst of the operation.

Apple recently struck a deal to acquire Ascend.io, a company focused on agentic data engineering technology. Under the Digital Markets Act, Apple must now publicly report acquisitions above a certain size. This has given us new insight into the company’s acquisition strategy, including glimpses at its future goals. more…

Cisco President Jeetu Patel has handed a 27-year-old ex-startup founder a huge job to rewrite 98% of Cisco's legacy code within 24 months.

Salesforce has agreed to acquire Rune Technologies, a defence software start-up whose platform helps military teams manage logistics and make decisions when frontline communications are disrupted.

Paresh Dave / Wired: How a wave of startups are betting on AI to make formal software verification practical and essential, including &Truth, which launches with a $70M seed  —  A new startup called &Truth is joining the race to automate formal verification, a painstaking process that uses math to prove software works as intended.

What do investors need to see out of a startup in a tight environment, and how can marketing support that? Read tips from an agency leader who's grown several unicorns.

[The content of this article has been produced by our advertising partner.] Global venture capital is surging in 2026, fuelled by concentrated investment in AI, digital infrastructure, robotics and other frontier technologies. At the same time, agentic AI, tokenisation, stable coins and programmable finance are accelerating the movement of capital across borders, giving rise to an emerging ‘agentic economy.’  Against this backdrop, CVCF 2026 aims to further energise and accelerate venture...

Rocket Drew / The Information: Source: Dulo, a startup co-founded by Google veteran Sebastian Thrun to build “foundation models for hardware design”, raised a $130M seed  —  Sebastian Thrun, the computer scientist who pioneered several AI projects at Google, has co-founded a new startup focused on creating AI models …

Domestic startup investment, which had swelled to double last year’s level in the first half of the year, declined in the third quarter, failing to even meet last year’s level. The cumulative investment amount exceeded 10 trillion won (about $7.5 billion) for the first time in four years, but assess

Katie Roof / Business Insider: Sources: AI coding startup Cognition weighs a new funding round before year's end after receiving offers valuing it at $70B-$80B, up from $48B in September  —  Just weeks after announcing a new round of funding at a $48 billion valuation, AI coding startup Cognition is fielding new investor interest at a much higher price.

Yoolim Lee / Bloomberg: Seoul-based AI chip startup FuriosaAI raised a $620M Series D at a $2.9B valuation, up from $735M in 2025; South Korea's National Growth Fund contributed $280M  —  South Korean AI chip startup FuriosaAI quadrupled its valuation to $2.9 billion in a fresh funding round, bolstering its bid to challenge the likes of Nvidia Corp.

They day you get to book an all-electric flight may be closer than you think if Dutch startup Elysian Aircraft gets its way. Their new E9X commercial airliner promises flights that are a whole lot quieter, and at prices that are whole lot less dependent on dumb oil wars. more…

Agents found a way in through third-party business software, but Anthropic is saying its bug bounty rules were broken.

Rocket Drew / The Information: Foundry, a manufacturing-as-a-service startup that builds factories with robots powered by physical AI models, raised a $100M Series A led by Marlinspike  —  Large companies have learned over the past couple years that they can get more mileage out of AI agents by rethinking their processes from scratch …

This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology. AI labs are buying data from dead startups to train their models When Keelan Miskell began winding down his crypto startup, he didn’t think its data was worth much. But he’s…

Marissa Newman / Bloomberg: AI and cloud cybersecurity startup Upwind Security raised $400M led by Bessemer at a $3.8B valuation, up from $1.5B in January, for $830M in total funding  —  Upwind Security, a San Francisco-based startup offering cybersecurity for artificial intelligence and cloud applications …

Valida Pau / The Information: Sources: chipmaker Onsemi is in talks to acquire 16-year-old chip startup Ferric for ~$1B; PitchBook: Ferric last raised a $32.1M Series C in December 2024  —  Semiconductor component maker Onsemi has been discussing an acquisition of 16-year-old chip startup Ferric for close to $1 billion …

EU Inc, the Commission’s promise to strengthen the EU’s startup market and keep startups from moving abroad, is facing roadblocks that make its adoption by 2026 difficult. Will the 28th regime survive?

The AI company Anthropic has acquired a drug discovery startup called Mithril Medicine, as part of its push into the life sciences. And that's where things start to get strange. Mithril is ...

The companies said the experimental spacecraft, launched Oct. 1, could lead to a Ukrainian-controlled satellite network The post Ukrainian startup, GomSpace test satellite for future communications network appeared first on SpaceNews.

Bloomberg: Sources: AI robotics startup Physical Intelligence is in talks to raise $1B+ led by Avenir and Lux Capital at a ~$20B valuation, up from $11.5B earlier in 2026  —  Physical Intelligence, a startup developing artificial intelligence software to power robots for real-world tasks …

Last year, U.K. gene therapy startup Bloomsbury Genetic Therapies announced it was shutting down after dosing just one patient. Now, a nonprofit is resurrecting its lead program:

Disruptive, a venture capital firm based in Dallas, has raised a $10bn fund to invest in AI, defence and software startups, Bloomberg reported on Tuesday. The new money roughly doubles the assets the firm manages. Disruptive plans to back about 10 late-stage companies, putting around $1bn into each. Most of it will go into new funding […] This story continues at The Next Web

Discover our top picks of biotech incubators in Europe giving life science startups the boost they need to get off the ground. The post 13 of the best biotech incubators hatching startups in Europe appeared first on Labiotech.eu. © Labiotech UG and Labiotech.eu. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Labiotech UG and Labiotech.eu with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Ferring Pharmaceuticals has signed an agreement to acquire the fertility startup Gameto in a deal that could be worth up to $1.3825 billion, the companies told Endpoints News ahead of a

Financial Times: Sources: UK stealth AI startup 22one, which is building law enforcement tools, hit a nearly $400M valuation after raising funds from Sequoia, Lux, and others  —  Steven Richardson has raised funds from investors including Sequoia for company providing tools for police forces

With EU-Inc, the EU wanted to help European businesses and startups scale across the entire single market. But loopholes and concerns over worker’s rights keep stalling the initiative.

Ian King / Bloomberg: Intel agrees to acquire Tel Aviv-based quantum computing startup Classiq; Classiq has raised more than $200M in funding and has about 130 employees  —  Intel Corp. agreed to buy Israeli startup Classiq Technologies Ltd. as part of a push to capitalize on quantum computing, a still-nascent field that is seeking commercial applications.

A U.S. startup has booked two Indian rocket launches to test a planned service no company has sold before: sunlight at night.

A new defense tech startup aiming to produce genetically enhanced dogs for military and law enforcement use launched Friday with $200 million in seed funding. Texas-based Warhound was conceived by Anduril Industries founder Palmer Luckey and entrepreneur Ben Lamm, who started Colossal Biosciences, a company best known for its efforts to revive extinct species. In […]

Joanna Glasner / Crunchbase News: California startups have raised a record $385B across seed to growth rounds so far in 2026, or 75%+ of all US startup funding; early and seed stage raised ~$62B  —  California companies have scooped up more than three-fourths of all U.S. startup funding this year.  That, per Crunchbase data, is an apparent record share.

Washington Post: Cathedral, a months-old cybersecurity startup founded by ex-DOGE staffers, says it breached Anthropic's internal systems in under 12 hours using AI agents  —  The start-up firm Cathedral has told makers of the Claude chatbot that its researchers were able to quickly penetrate sensitive systems, a report reviewed by The Post shows.

Most AI assistants live in a chat window. Stockholm-based Strawberry wants them to work where people already do their jobs: inside the browser, with access to the tabs, tools, and accounts they use every day. The startup released version 1.0 of its AI browser today, taking it out of beta and pitching it at workers […] This story continues at The Next Web

Alexandra Alter / New York Times: A profile of former Google VP and Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer, whose startup Dazzle is building an AI assistant to help non-tech enthusiasts with mundane tasks  —  Marissa Mayer has reinvented herself as a start-up founder, with a team of 10 engineers — a fraction of the armies of programmers …

Seoul is bringing financial technology startups and global industry leaders together this week to explore how artificial intelligence (AI) could reshape personal finance while opening new paths to investment and growth for emerging businesses. Seoul Fintech Week 2026 began Monday and continues through Wednesday at Conrad Seoul and around the International Finance Centre in Yeouido, with the Seoul Metropolitan Government, Financial Supervisory Service and Shinhan Financial Group among its co-hosts. Held under the theme “AI-driven digital finance transformation: Finance that knows me,” the event will examine personalized financial services, AI agents and data-driven tools designed to tailor services to individual users. The opening ceremony on Monday included a speech by Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon and awards for three companies selected through the Finovation Challenge, a city-backed program supporting fintech startups through industry partnerships and real-world technology testing. Six

Ananta Agarwal / Nikkei Asia: India's chip design startups near production with government support, but low volumes, high fab costs, and supply chain bottlenecks hinder commercialization  —  BENGALURU — Propelled by government support, India's chip design startups are nearing commercial production …

Geoff Meyerson addressed the growth of U.S.-Chinese licensing/collaboration deals, the recent growth of IPOs, and the still-chilly climate for startups seeking financing in a recent interview with GEN Edge. The post StockWatch: Investment Banker Talks U.S.-Chinese Deals, IPOs, and a Tough Climate for Startups Seeking Capital appeared first on GEN - Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology News.

Bloomberg: High-frequency trading firms such as Jane Street are investing in AI and chip startups and neoclouds, and building data centers to gain an edge in the AI era  —  High-frequency trading firms are even building their own data centers as they compete for an edge in the AI era.

Anu, an indoor farming startup founded by Purdue alumni, has received a $500,000 NSF Phase IIB SBIR grant to scale manufacturing of its compostable Plug-and-Grow Seed Pods for automated, low-labor Food is Medicine cultivation.

TOPC's TXA2 combines AMD's Ryzen AI Max+ PRO 495, 192GB RAM, four SSD slots, and quad-monitor support at substantial prices.

The deal could allow Rivian to simluate edge cases before they occur in the real world.

Enterprise software startup founders need to judge venture capitalists (VCs) who offer financing for their products not only

Learn how to make better business decisions by acting on evidence, adjusting your approach and applying lessons from experience.

Erica Groussman came up with her business idea during a family trip to Disney.

Warhound says gene editing and cloning can fix why military dog candidates fail, but questions about genes and oversight remain.

Sipeed claims its 256 TOPS MaixStation can outperform Nvidia's DGX Spark on Qwen workloads despite lower advertised computing capacity and consumption.

US billionaire Palmer Luckey is launching a startup to clone genetically-modified war dogs and equip them with high-tech battlefield gear Read Full Article at RT.com

Rivian wants to rebuild the roads its customers drive as 3D test worlds for its self-driving system, and it just bought a 15-person UK startup called Third Dimension to do it, as first reported by TechCrunch. The startup was founded in 2024 by a former Tesla Autopilot simulation engineer and a veteran of Wayve’s neural simulator team. Rivian didn’t say what it paid. more…

The Warhound website calls this “a new breed of dominance.” | Image: Warhound A new Texas-based defense startup has a plan to improve military and police dogs in the US: it's going to genetically modify them and equip them with Anduril's military technology. Warhound is the brainchild of Anduril's Palmer Luckey and Ben Lamm, co-founder of Colossal Biosciences (the company that says it's trying to resurrect extinct animals), and it's already secured $200 million in funding from investors. Warhound plans to use Colossal's work in genetics, cloning, and animal biology to "produce healthier dogs with characteristics suited to demanding missions," with Anduril then equipping them with its "advanced cybernetic Augments." T … Read the full story at The Verge.

The Korea Securities Depository (KSD) has directed funding toward social welfare and innovative businesses, contributing an average of around 1.78 billion won ($1.34 million) annually from 2023 to 2025 and 1.55 billion won for this year, the state-run agency said Friday. Headquartered in Busan, KSD focuses much of its social contribution work on developing local talent, helping young people become financially independent and strengthening the regional economy. Its programs range from scholarships and job training to funding for social enterprises, startups and small and midsize businesses. One such effort is the Open Campus, which introduces university students to KSD’s work and career opportunities in the securities industry. Participants learn about its core functions, including securities settlement, get information on recruitment and speak with current employees. Launched in 2019 with 35 students from five universities, it has grown to 60 students from 12 universities this year.

Twenty-eight promising startups from 10 ASEAN countries laid the groundwork for cooperation by directly exploring South Korea’s investment market and innovation ecosystem.The ASEAN-Korea Centre held the "2026 ASEAN-Korea Startup Week" in Seoul and Daegu for four days from on Oct. 20. Held annually s

Warhound came out of stealth on Wednesday with $200 million in funding and a mission to create "elite working dogs" equipped with "advanced body armor."

Camila Grigera Naón / Fortune: a16z rebrands a16z Crypto as a16z Frontier and expands the fund's scope to back startups developing AI, robotics, and other emerging technologies  —  In 2018, Andreessen Horowitz made a splash in the venture capital world by launching a spin-off dedicated to digital assets called a16z Crypto.

The Information: Sources: Datadog offered to buy Israeli cloud cybersecurity startup Upwind Security for ~$4B; Upwind is finalizing a $300M funding round at a ~$3.8B valuation  —  Enterprise software firm Datadog recently offered to buy Israeli cloud cybersecurity startup Upwind Security for nearly $4 billion …

Zurich-based Enact Intelligence has emerged from stealth with a $30M pre-seed round from redalpine, Notion Capital and firstminute capital. It builds robots that sense force and touch through their motors, not only cameras. Founder Manuel Yves Galliker previously led software for 1X’s NEO humanoid. Enact Intelligence, a Zurich startup building robots that can feel force […] This story continues at The Next Web

Health tech venture firm Redesign Health is merging with ARC Global, the innovation arm of Sheba Medical Center, to help hospitals in different countries develop and sell software. The new company will combine the two ...

Bloomberg: Pressure to back promising AI startups is upending the VC investment process, with investors willing to buy into the same round at rapidly escalating valuations  —  Venture capitalists are fighting to invest in AI startup Emulate, driving its valuation into the billions …

Investor appetite stays strong as AgTech funding exceeds $2 billion and deal volume jumps. The post Q3 2026 AgTech Venture Capital Investment and Exit Round Up appeared first on CropLife.

OpenEvidence is booming despite questions about accuracy and ads.

Sydney-based Mary Technology has connected its litigation tool to Harvey, the $15.6B legal AI company. Lawyers drafting in Harvey can now draw on the facts, evidence and reviews their team has built up in Mary, including conflicting accounts. Workflow firm Autologyx also joined Harvey’s connector library. Mary Technology, a Sydney-based legal AI startup, has connected […] This story continues at The Next Web

Recursive makes the case that the benefits of using AI to build AI outweigh the risks.

Rosie Harris-Davison / City A.M.: Stockholm-based legal AI startup Legora raised a $550M Series E at an $8.8B post-money valuation, up from $5.55B after raising a $550M Series D in March  —  Legal tech firm Legora has raised $550m (£410m) in Series E funding as it expands its footprint in the US, Europe, and the Asia-Pacific region.

Beatrice Nolan / Fortune: AI code-testing startup Blacksmith raised a $66M Series C led by Sequoia Capital at a $1B valuation, up from $550M after raising a $45M Series B in August  —  Blacksmith, a startup that runs the infrastructure companies use to test code before it ships, has been valued at $1 billion following …

The Series A round, which included participation from North Island Ventures and existing investors, brings New York-based Mural's total funding to $28 million.

Emily Mullin / Wired: Coherence Neuro, which is developing AI models and brain implants to help combat brain tumors, raised a $45M seed from the OpenAI Startup Fund and Founders Fund  —  It's the latest in a growing wave of bets that AI companies are making on brain data.  —  OpenAI's venture capital arm …

It’s the latest in a growing wave of bets that AI companies are making on brain data.

Dina Bass / Bloomberg: Pigment, a French startup that makes AI-powered software to help businesses forecast finances, spin up slide decks, and more, raised $250M at a $2.3B valuation  —  Pigment, a French AI company that competes with Microsoft's Excel and PowerPoint, has raised $250 million in a funding round …

In corporate America, Stanley Anderson ’79 says, executives often assume that their peers grew up in privileged circumstances.  He did not. “I spent my early years trying not to get recruited into gangs, getting shot at, watching my friends get murdered, and thinking that if I don’t leave, I will die,” says Anderson, who was…

Former OpenAI executive Bob McGrew is launching Arda at a $1.5 billion.

Former OpenAI executive Bob McGrew is launching Arda at a $1.5 billion.